It is becoming more and more of interest to distribute (multi-)media data such as text data, audio data, and/or video data from a central unit such as a media server to a plurality of different output devices such as tablet style personal computers, smart phones, televisions, and/or laptop style personal computers. Further, the media data may be delivered to the output devices over different delivery networks such as pure media data in HDMI, streamed media data over a fixed wired Ethernet network, and/or over a wireless IP network. For example, video data shall be displayed through a central unit on such output devices on a periodical basis (e.g. weekly, monthly, daily, etc.). Consequently, the media data need to be synchronized between the central unit and each of the output devices. Distribution and/or synchronization of media data in a multi-user device environment become more and more of interest.
However, often problems arise when distributing and/or integrating media data with a central unit to a plurality of different output devices. For example, in most cases the media data is not synchronized across or between the different output devices. Furthermore, systems such as a central unit of distributing media data to a plurality of different output devices usually do not automatically re-synchronize the media data on the different output devices when the media data stream is stopped for some reason.
In view of the above, it would be challenging to distribute media data from a central unit such as a media server to a plurality of possibly distributed (local) devices over different delivery networks without the need for a (local) user to intervene so that media data is automatically synchronized and/or re-synchronized between a plurality of output devices with the central unit.
It is also not possible to manage and/or monitor media data centrally by controlling a single central unit connected to local output devices, wherein the media data may be transcoded and/or distributed in different formats.
Hence, there is a need to provide systems and methods for distributing and/or integrating media data to a plurality of output devices wherein a (re-) synchronization of the media data across (or between or among) a plurality of different output devices with a central unit can be automatically guaranteed.